The present invention generally relates to the search and analysis of electronic medical record (“EMR”) data. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for visually representing associated data in one or more timelines.
Information and data can be visually presented to users in a variety of formats. For example, numerical and text data can be presented to users via a word processing application, a spreadsheet application or a web browser application, among others. In some instances, particular data is stamped, or recorded with, a time and/or date. For example, the time and/or date can represent when the data was collected or entered into a data storage system.
This time and/or date information can be used to present data in a chronological, or timeline fashion. This is an additional, useful manner in which data and information can be visually presented to a user.
However, as the amount of information or data presented to users in any of these and other formats increases, it becomes more and more difficult for users to understand and comprehend the information and the presentation of the information. For example, as more and more information is presented on a timeline, the timeline can become too cluttered for a user to obtain a useful understanding of the information presented in the timeline. In addition, it can become difficult for a user to quickly and easily see associations among the data.
This problem can occur in the presentation of medical data, for example. One manner in which medical data can be presented is in a timeline. However, this manner of presenting medical events can become confusing to users when a large number of medical events are presented. For example, a patient with multiple medical problems and frequent medical tests, imaging procedures and office visits, the presentation of medical events can be daunting. In addition, this presentation can be extremely difficult to determine which medical events and data represented on one or more timelines are related to one another and/or to a particular medical problem, caregiver/hospital encounter, medical procedure or hospital stay, for example.
Thus, a need exists for improving the methods in which events and data are presented to a user. The improved methods should present a visual association among related or associated events/data so that a user can quickly and easily see the associations among all related data and events.